


Nocturnal Animals

by ThisChairIsMyHomeNow



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: (sort of), Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Bonding, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Falling In Love, Friendship, Insomnia, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pre-Relationship, SO SLOWLY THEY DON'T KNOW IT YET, Sharing a Bed, Texting, falling in love very slowly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 10:53:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11850078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisChairIsMyHomeNow/pseuds/ThisChairIsMyHomeNow
Summary: One evening, super late, long after Peter has finished web-slinging for the day and Aunt May has tapped on his bedroom door to groggily yawn her goodnights, Peter gets a text from Michelle.





	Nocturnal Animals

One evening, super late, long after Peter has finished web-slinging for the day and Aunt May has tapped on his bedroom door to groggily yawn her goodnights, Peter gets a text from Michelle.

He’s wide awake and anxiously mulling over the usual topics: Stark and the Avengers, the future, the fact that he and Liz said they would keep in touch but they hadn’t and wouldn’t, Vulture’s scary-ass green robot eyes, the ferry, and the not-so-pleasant way it felt to (almost) be crushed to motherfucking death under rubble. Finally his brain circles back to Uncle Ben’s absence and the shadow it cast on _everything_. Life is about 20 degrees colder in the shade of it.

He is sprawled out on his belly, face pressed dumbly into the mattress, trying his damndest to sleep despite his mind’s entire lack of interest in the activity, when his phone dings. It’s lit up with a single emoji: the moon. He stares at it, dumbfounded, before sending back a moon of his own. He picks the sillier one with the creepy face, and that is the end of that entire random conversation.

It’s weird as fuck.

It’s weird partly because it’s so late, and mainly because he and Michelle—or should he say MJ?—don’t talk outside of school. He’s pretty sure Michelle doesn’t actually talk to _anyone_ outside of school. Or to anyone, period. She’s grumpy like that.

The only reason they have each other’s number is because Mr. Harrington insisted all of the decathlon team exchange contact info during the DC field trip, in case anyone got lost. But this is not a decathlon related text. So it must be a fluke, or an accident, or (knowing what he knows of Michelle) some sort of social experiment she might later blog about. He expects to not hear from her again. He low-key hopes he doesn’t.

But sure enough, the next night, just as late, she sends him an hour long video of a Koala doing nothing but eating eucalyptus leaves. “IT ME,” she types, and admits to being slightly stoned. Peter laughs a little at that, almost startling himself, before watching the whole thing. It’s bizarrely soothing. Huh. He actually manages to drift off for a few hours before he wakes, sweat-soaked and gasping, to the sensation of being suffocated by concrete debris. So it fucking goes.

Normally after a nightmare he’d get up and peel off his t-shirt and boxers and try to take a very quiet shower, or switch to the top bunk where the sheets are fresh and cool, or maybe even climb to the roof to get some air and contemplate the mystery of death like some emo motherfucker. But this time, on a whim born out of sheer desperation and a touch of curiosity, he reaches for his phone instead to message the only person who might still be awake at this hour. And this is how Peter Parker gets in the odd habit of texting Michelle Jones when he gets scared at night.

 

 **Peter:** You got any more koala videos lol?

 **Michelle:** Nah. But here’s some vintage lullaby music. [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ziw4yd5R0QI&t=863s ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ziw4yd5R0QI&t=863s)

**Peter:** Oooh thanks dude

 **Michelle:** No prob.

 

They text pretty regularly after that, just a quick back and forth.

But eventually the conversations start taking off and lasting a while. Like the time they plot and execute a plan to annoy Ned by sending him no less than 20 pictures of Nicolas Cage, one after another, at 4:30AM. Or when Michelle starts ranting about politics (which is interesting) or when she starts oozing about this Neil DeGrasse Tyson book she’s reading (which Peter needs to borrow). For someone who barely talks in real life, Michelle sure can get chatty. Maybe it’s easier behind a screen. Michelle has this way of saying the stuff you’re not really supposed to say, the stuff most people filter out. She just comes right out and says it and sometimes it makes Peter burst out laughing to the point where he has to slap a hand over his mouth so he’s not too loud. Talking to Michelle is surprisingly easy, turns out. And before Peter knows it he’s done it all summer.

They text about movies and science and music and the upcoming school year. What they never really seem to talk about is _why_ Peter is always awake in the middle of the night. It becomes a game almost: talking about everything except the thing he really needs to talk about.

He longs for sleep but it just won’t come; or if it does it visits in short spurts that leave him just as exhausted as before. His mind is an angry beehive once the sun goes down. And while Michelle helps lower the volume of it a few decibels, the buzzing never stops.

But he’ll be fine. Aunt May keeps pestering him about the dark circles under his eyes and his complete lack of concentration. But he’ll be okay. Don’t most teenagers stay up late? He’s fine. It’s just a phase. And what’s that saying? _I’ll sleep when I’m dead?_ Sounds about right.

 

*

 

It started after Liz left.

Which seems like a supreme overreaction.

Because while Peter liked Liz, while he thought she was beautiful and smart and amazing, he didn’t really _know_ Liz. Oh, he knew plenty _about_ her, but he didn’t really know her and they were not close. He had a crush. They had one (admittedly bad) date. Then she moved away. That was all there really was to it.

But it was something about the way she just dropped off the map, something about the way she just _disappeared_ that triggered all sorts of terrible moods and memories and feelings of loss that make him wonder if he’s cracking up. He knows it’s irrational— _she’s alive! She’s definitely alive!_ —but it doesn’t _feel_ like she is. He saw her just about every day for years and now he doesn’t see her at all. Poof, gone, bye forever.

It started when Liz left but it’s hardly about Liz at all: It's about Vulture, it's about what happened, it's about the Avengers, and Uncle Ben, and  _everything_.

Not long after Liz moved away, Aunt May was late getting home from work—only by fifteen minutes, tops—and Peter spent the last five of them in full panic mode, breathing frantically into a paper bag, which he tossed hurriedly into the trash the moment he heard the door opening.

“What’s wrong?” May had said, aghast, when she saw the fear in his eyes.

“Didn’t know where you were,” he’d finally croaked with a shrug, sounding a lot younger than almost-sixteen when he managed to push the words past the lump in his throat. He’d let himself go boneless when May hugged him in that classic May way: so tight he his eyeballs might pop out of their sockets from the pressure. It was then he remembered yet again Vulture’s gruff voice saying: _I will kill you, and everybody you love._

And Peter had crafted a response in his head to that, grim and ridiculous: _That won’t take long, asshole—I’m already an orphan and a half!_

So yeah. It was around that time he stopped sleeping so good.

  


*

 

Here’s the dumbest fucking part about being a superhero: you worry all the time.

Peter spends the time he’s not superhero-ing being worried about the people he’s not out there saving. (Queens needs him.)

But then he spends the time he _is_ superhero-ing worrying about the people in his regular life who might get hurt because of his superhero-ing. (He almost got Ned _killed_. The elevator. The! fucking! elevator!)

To the point where he almost wants to _stop_ superhero-ing all together. (Forget the Avengers. May would be so relieved.)

But then he gets worried about the people he wouldn’t save. (What if those aliens come back??)

And then he worries about his family and friends again. (He’s painting a fucking target on their backs—Vulture was only the beginning.)

And then he starts worrying he’s dragging everyone down, one way or another.

And then he starts worrying that he’ll always feel this way.

And then he starts worrying there’s no point to anything.

And then he starts worrying about the fact he can’t picture Uncle Ben’s face at will anymore; he has to look at a photo to really imagine the smile lines correctly, the way Ben’s right eye was a little bit greener than the left. His brain can’t summon the sound of Ben’s voice accurately anymore. He has to listen to old voicemail.

He starts worrying he’s going to forget. And if he can’t keep the memories of those he’s lost alive, aren’t they dying all over again, little by little?

Oh, what he wouldn’t give to go back and time and squash that stupid fucking spider with a shoe.

Peter sits up in bed and tries to breathe. He rubs the spot on his hand where the stupid fucking spider bit him, even though it doesn’t actually hurt and there’s no scar. All the shit that’s happened to him and he doesn’t have a mark on him. No cool lightning bolt scar like Harry Potter to offer physical proof that he’s been irrevocably altered. This is just the way things are now. Uncle Ben is dead and he can climb walls like a motherfucking arachnid.

He reaches for his phone and hopes to God that Michelle asks questions she’s not supposed to ask tonight. You’re not supposed to bring up someone’s dead relatives. People in his life are very careful to avoid the subject, to skirt around it out of fear of upsetting him. Everyone at school knows about it but nobody broaches the subject, because it’s not what people _do._ But Michelle? Terrible social skills. He’d let her rudely pry and pull it out of him: all of his fear and grief.

  


*

 

 **Peter:** What is sleep

 **Michelle:** No idea. I drank a triple shot latte at dinner.

 **Peter:** Yikes!!

 **Michelle:** I’ve decided to lean into the insomnia. Caffeine lets me see through space and time.

 **Peter:** You and your substances lol

 **Michelle:** Speaking of substances. Have you ever tried melatonin?

 **Peter:** Yeah May gave me some but it doesn’t really do anything

 **Michelle:** What about chamomile tea?

 **Peter:** Nope

 **Michelle:** Nope as in you haven’t tried it?

 **Peter:** Nope as in I tried it and that also doesn’t work lol

 **Michelle:** I see. Well, I officially give up being helpful.

 **Michelle:** Let’s just stay up all night instead. Deal?

 **Peter:** Works for me haha

 **Peter:** You know if you had told me a year ago that we’d be talking like this I wouldn’t have believed you

 **Michelle:** That’s because you lack imagination.

 **Peter:** Ha

 **Peter:** Ha

 **Peter:** Ha

 **Peter:** No lol it’s because I always thought you hated me since like 8th grade

 **Peter:** Not really me specifically just like humans in general

 **Michelle:** That’s not entirely inaccurate. But things are changing. New leaf. Making friends. Woo hoo.

 **Peter:** Why the change?

 **Michelle:** Um. Just getting older I guess. And some other reasons. A lot is different since middle school.

 **Peter:** I’ve blocked out most of middle school tbh

 **Michelle:** Pop quiz, bitch. Did we have gym class together in 8th grade or was it English?

 **Peter:** Uhhhh trick question we had both

 **Michelle:** So you DO remember.

 **Peter:** Oh I remember the day I met you trust me

 **Michelle:** Really?

 **Peter:** Yeah of course you used to wear all black and goth makeup and I heard rumors that you kept dead crows in your freezer for blood rituals so I was kinda scared of you lol

 **Peter:** Our first conversation ever was you explaining those symbols you drew all over your notebooks

 **Peter:** I thought they were some cool math thing but you said they were runes for hexing your enemies

 **Michelle:** I used to be the baddest witch in all of Queens.

 **Peter:** Just put my mind at ease and tell me there weren’t actually any dead crows in your freezer

 **Michelle:** No crows. But I did try to put a love spell on Mr. Lopez once.

 **Peter:** YOU HAD A CRUSH ON MR. LOPEZ??!?!

 **Michelle:** Speak of this to anyone and I will end your life.

 **Peter:** HE WAS LIKE 60 AND BALD AND HAD A MUSTACHE

 **Michelle:** The heart wants what it wants.

 **Peter:** Hahaha well I’m sorry it didn’t work out

 **Michelle:** It’s okay. Love isn’t real and we’ll all going to die alone in the end. :) :) :) :) :)

 **Peter:** Well damn that’s dark

 **Michelle:** Sorry. My mom is getting divorced for the third time. It has put me in a Big Mood.

 **Peter:** Wait what

 **Peter:** Oh god

 **Peter:** I’m so sorry

 **Michelle:** Oh, DON’T BE. It’s a relief. They were miserable. Now I don’t have to hear them bitch at each other anymore.

 **Michelle:** Step-dad #2 is is moving to southern California.

 **Peter:** Holy shit that’s really far

 **Michelle:** If you understood how much they hate each that wouldn’t seem that far.

 **Peter:** So you didn’t like him?

 **Michelle:** I try not to get attached to these supposed father figures. But at least this one was kinda rich so we get to keep our apartment. He was literally just like KEEP EVERYTHING I’M OUTTA HERE BITCHES

 **Peter:** Jesus when was this?

 **Michelle:** Just before school ended.

 **Peter:** Why didn’t you say anything before???

 **Michelle:** I don’t know. I haven’t really told anyone. It requires me to feel feelings about the situation which I am typically against.

 **Peter:** I don’t even know what to say

 **Michelle** : I don’t really know what to say either. It’s easier to blast old school Nirvana and curse the wind like I’m doing right now.

 **Peter** : I’m sure your mom and neighbors are loving THAT at this hour

 **Michelle:** Eh, nobody is here. Mom already has a rebound guy she’s fucking in Jersey so I’ve been home alone most of the summer. All the loud music I want. *dance party*

 **Peter:** Uhhhh what

 **Michelle:** LA LA LA LA everything is fine!! It’s totally normal for a 15 year old to live alone!! Nbd!!!

 **Peter:** Jesus christ mj

 **Michelle:** I think that’s the first time you’ve called me that.

 **Peter:** Feels more appropriate now idk  

 **Peter:** So your moms not around at all? Does she at least check in??

 **Michelle:** I get drunk texts about how much fun she’s having? She is not the most responsible person.

 **Peter:** Okay wow I’m pretty sure that your situation is like...reportable  

 **Michelle:** Please don’t tell anyone.

 **Peter:** I won’t but that is incredibly shitty and not okay of her although I guess it must nice to do whatever you want

 **Michelle:** It has its perks. For example, I can spontaneously decide to throw a party right now. Do you and Ned want to come over and watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy and eat 1,000 pizza rolls?

 **Peter:** Uhhh that sounds amazing sure

 **Michelle:** We can. I have that glorious freedom. Or you and I could hop a cargo train bound for Canada.

 **Peter:** Lol also an option…

 **Michelle:** Or I could sneak into a rave and drop acid

 **Peter:** Okaaaay waht

 **Michelle:** There are no grown ups to stop me from anything. It’s fun to imagine the possibilities.

 **Michelle:** I could paint this whole apartment in glitter paint.

 **Michelle:** I could sketch a giant mural on the wall.

 **Michelle:** I could set the building on fire.

 **Michelle:** I could join a cult.

 **Michelle:** I could tell the creepy men of craigslist that I am available for deflowering.

 **Michelle:** I could rearrange the furniture.

 **Michelle:** I could throw everything my mother owns out the window into the alley.

 **Michelle:** So many choices.

 **Peter:** I can’t tell what your tone is but this not really funny I’m kinda worried now

 **Michelle:** UGH, I’m sorry I unloaded all of this on you. I don’t really have anyone else and I’m exhausted.

 **Michelle:** I can’t sleep in this fucking place. It’s so empty. Anything could happen to me and no one would know. I feel like I’m going crazy. I’m just so tired.

 **Michelle:** I know how to take care of myself. I’ve done this before. But that’s the thing. Today I was fixing the kitchen sink because it broke. I just...fixed it. With tools. I didn’t think twice about it. And then I took myself back-to-school shopping. And then I made myself dinner and did the dishes.

 **Michelle:** After that I watered the house plants.

 **Michelle:** I think that’s when I snapped. The plants look fine.

 **Michelle:** THEY’RE TOTALLY FINE

 **Michelle:** They should be dead. This apartment should be covered in take out boxes and piles of laundry. There should be roaches. The sink should still be broken. That would be normal. That’s what SHOULD happen when you leave a highschool kid alone for months.

 **Michelle:** It just hit me today that my normal is totally not normal. It fucking sucks.

 **Peter:** I’m so sorry

 **Peter:** I know that doesn’t help but I really am

 **Peter:** I don’t know what it’s like to be in that situation but at the same time I kind of get what you’re saying about your normal not being normal

 **Peter:** My normal isn’t normal either and it also fucking sucks

 **Peter:** But hey I have an idea

 **Michelle:** Yeah?

 **Peter:** How about you come over here

 **Peter:** My couch is super comfortable

 **Peter:** And tomorrow is Saturday

 **Peter:** May sleeps in on Saturdays but when she wakes up she always makes chocolate chip pancakes and its the best

 **Peter:** So come here so you’re not alone and get some sleep and eat some delicious pancakes

 **Michelle:** You don’t think she would mind?

 **Peter:** May? Not at ALL

 **Peter:** She’s always talking about her open door policy blah blah blah

 **Peter:** Plus she knows you from the team and everything

 **Peter:** And if you’re worried we can just tell her in the morning that your apartment is being bug bombed or something

 **Peter:** She doesn’t have to know why you’re really here

 **Michelle:** Thank you.

 **Michelle:** *deep breath*

 **Michelle:** Okay. I’m on my way.

 **Peter:** Wait I wanna walk you over here

 **Peter:** It’s late and there are creeps our

 **Peter:** Out*

 **Michelle:** You only live two blocks away.

 **Peter:** I do??? Wait how do you know where I live??

 **Michelle:** I’m not a stalker. I just have your decathlon contact form.

 **Michelle:** See you in a sec, neighbor.

 

*

 

He opens the door before she can knock.

They stand there in the darkness for a moment, both dressed in pajamas, both exhausted as hell.

He feels like an idiot.

It was easier to imagine that MJ was just a night owl, quirky and mysterious, than it was to assume she was as messed up in the head as he is. He’s been so busy worrying about his own life that he totally missed the fact that hers is falling apart. It makes more sense now, why she’d started to reach out a little more—with the team at school, and recently with him. They were tiny acts of survival. She’s been on her own.

He has no idea what to say to her in real life, without the inherent safety of a screen to hide behind. There’s a certain uninhibitedness that comes from wifi-aided interactions. They’ve been talking effortlessly for months but haven’t looked each other in the eye in all that time. Now she’s standing in his doorway and it’s like meeting her for the first time: the real her. Not just the sarcastic night owl he’s selfishly used as a distraction—his very real friend. She lives two blocks away. It’s like she’s been here all along and only now he's fully noticing.

He has no clue what to say, so he does something he’s never done before, awkwardness be damned: he hugs her hello. She seems surprised at first. Her arms hang limply at her sides. He breaks it off for this reason, like it’s just a quick thing, because maybe she’s not into it and he crossed a line, but then she surprises him back by slipping her arms around his neck and pulling him in and leaning into him warmly with her whole body. And well, _huh._ That’s nice.

It should feel weird, but it doesn’t. It feels like they’ve always done this: held each other in doorways in the middle of the night.

“I just realized something,” MJ whispers seriously, after a beat.

“Yeah?”

“You’re a midget,” she says, and Peter has to suppress a convulsive laugh. She’s always catching him off-guard. In so many ways.

He pushes her off playfully and shakes his head in an exasperated sort of way. “Asshole,” he whispers. “I’m like two inches shorter than you. That’s _it_.”

“I can see the top of your head,” she says, deadpan and not so quiet. Peter almost snorts. Of course it’s a lie. She probably can’t see much of anything, let alone the top of his head. He left the lights off because he didn’t want to wake up May. He prays they can avoid bumping into the furniture.

“Shhh,” Peter reprimands. “Do you want to sleep here or not?”

“Lead the way, shorty.”

 _“Two inches,”_ he hisses. He shuts the front door quietly behind them and grabs her arm gently and leads her inside. They tip toe quietly into the living room where Peter has a fluffy blanket set up for her on the couch. She crawls under it and curls up on her side.

“You need anything else?” he asks.

“I forgot my toothbrush.”

“Gross.”

She throws one of the little decorative couch cushions at his face and misses. It lands and knocks over something on the coffee table. Probably one of May’s empty beer bottles.

“Shhhhhh,” Peter admonishes again, except he’s smiling. He’s really glad she’s here.

“Hey, this could be like a real sleepover,” she says. “We could chant Bloody Mary in front of a mirror. Or - do you happen to have an Ouija board?”

“Let’s skip the occult shit for tonight,” he says.

“Fine—truth or dare?”

He has to keep himself from laughing again. But then it’s not funny: it’s exactly what he needs. And maybe she knows this, knows that he needs to get a few things off of his chest too.

“Truth,” he says, just before sitting down on the carpet near her.

She thinks for a moment. “Were you in love with Liz?”

“No,” Peter says. That’s a pretty easy one.

“Okay, truth or dare?” she asks again.

“Isn’t it my turn to ask _you_?”

“I think I’ve admitted enough truths already for one night,” she says wearily. “I don’t have much more in me.”

“Fair enough. Truth.”

“Hmmmm. Would you rather be the top scientist in your field or have mad cow disease?”

“...What?!” he snorts.

“It’s a really important question.”

“Uh, top scientist, definitely.”

“Oh good. I thought you were gonna say mad cow.”

Peter has to stifle another laugh in the crook of his elbow. “You are _so_ weird.”

In retaliation, there is suddenly a wet finger in his ear.

He leaps up off the ground, laughing. “Ahhh! I mean weird in a _good way_!” he tries to whisper. “No more wet-willies. Ever. I surrender.” He puts his hands up like it’s a stickup. It’s very hard to stay quiet out here.

Since he’s on his feet, he thinks for a second about asking her if they can move to his bedroom for the sake of May’s uninterrupted sleep. There are two beds in his bedroom, after all. But he’s never actually had a girl in his room before. Especially not one as obscenely beautiful as MJ. (People tend to miss it because she’s scowling at them.) The idea of asking her to sleep in his room makes him a little nervous. She might misunderstand or be offended. He can’t help but think of sex. Peter lets his mind go _there_ for just a second to get it out of his system and well— _huh_. It’s most definitely not a bad thought. And okaaaay, full disclosure: it’s actually not the first time he’s had it.

They should definitely stay out here in the living room.

“I’m gonna grab a sleeping bag,” he says.

He pads over to the hallway closet and rifles through quietly to the back and yanks out the first sleeping bag he can find—with a little pang of surprise he registers that it’s Uncle Ben’s, the one he used to use when they’d go upstate to camp. He’s glad to have it tonight. He unrolls it and settles in on the floor with that little pillow MJ threw earlier.

Were it not for the elevation difference, he and MJ would be nose to nose: they’re both on their sides. Opposite parentheses. She’s silent long enough that Peter wonders if she didn’t fall asleep when he got up a minute ago. It’s a wonderful thought, that she could feel relaxed enough with him to doze off.  The hush is comfortable with her.

“Truth or dare?” she whispers. Her eyes are closed but she’s not asleep after all. Though she sounds close to it.

“Truth.”

“On a scale of one to ten...how badly do you miss your parents and your uncle? Like what’s the pain scale today?”

Peter winces, because— _God_ —someone is finally asking, bluntly; it stings, but he’s glad for it, that she’s acknowledging it. People give him pitying looks about it sometimes, or hint at it, but they never come out and ask how he’s doing. Except for May, of course, but Peter can’t always admit the truth to her. He doesn’t want May to know how bad it gets. It would feel like a betrayal to confess that he’s not 100% happy and thriving under her care. She’s doing such a good job. She’s doing the best she can. But on a scale of one to ten, how badly has he missed his parents and Uncle Ben today? “Today’s been about a twelve.”

“That why you can’t sleep?”

“Yeah. Well, that and...some other stuff...stuff I can’t really get into…”

“Summarize for me?”

“...I’m guess I’m just always worried that I’m going to lose the people I care about. Or I’m worried about the future. It’s like...I don’t know. It only took a split second for my whole life to get turned upside down. More than once—my life has gone to shit a couple of times, ya know? It’s...disorienting. Like I’m still trying to figure out which way is up and which way is down again. I feel like I’m just...fumbling around.”

“I know what you mean,” she says, and then she doesn’t say anything for a long time. She doesn’t say “everything is going to be okay” or tell him some bullshit about how Uncle Ben would want him to move on and enjoy his life. She gets it. Sometimes people leave, or are taken from you, and it’s so fucking hard to see the way forward.

“Thanks for having me over,” she finally says.

“Thanks for being here,” he says.

He should say more but he feels himself growing drowsy. It’s not a sensation he’s experienced in what seems like ages. And he knows all his issues aren’t fixed, he knows tonight doesn’t mean the end of his problems. But for the first time all summer he thinks— _hopes_ —that maybe things might get better, eventually, in time. But even if they don’t, at least tonight he’s going to get some real rest with a friend literally by his side. That’s enough for him for now. When you’ve been stuck in the dark, your eyes adjust. The smallest bit of light goes a long, long way.

They drift off together as the sun starts to rise.

**Author's Note:**

> I shipped Peter and MJ from the moment she gave him the finger at homecoming. Ah, the beginnings of true love.  
> I wanted to give them more of a build up to the inevitable moment in the next movie where they're SUDDENLY ROMANTICALLY TOGETHER, BAM. What can I say, I'm a sucker for Friends-to-Lovers and canon rarely gives it to me. Thanks for reading!


End file.
